This text provides a developmental perspective of literacy learning as a way to understand the literacy process. The authors describe how children become skilled readers through the following five stages of the literacy growth process: emergent reading, initial reading, transitional, basic literacy, and refinement.
Unlike most other literacy books which are organized by topic, this text addresses such specific topics like word identification and comprehension within the larger framework of literacy development. Additionally, the authors emphasize helping teachers foster positive attitudes towards reading, promoting extensive reading experiences and reading for meaning; these instructional goals transcend and bind the stages into an integrated process.
About the Book
Unlike other texts that are organized topically, this text addresses such specific topics like word identification and comprehension within the larger framework of literacy development just in time for the new emphasis placed on assessing students based on their developmental stage as dictated by local, state and national standards. Long awaited, this is a practical how to do book that represents a synthesis of many points of view on how to assess the reading needs of children and to address them with highly effective teacher-tested strategies.
What Reviewers Are Saying
The chapters are well written and very organized giving the college students a good sense of the different stages of reading a child goes through as they are growing up. They introduce the students to the new vocabulary (and) are easy to read but thoroughly explain the concepts and reading strategies. The textbook is well written and organized. I find the graphic overview to be very helpful to me as well as the college students. The case studies are excellent. This is what the college students need.
Linda Conrad
Baldwin Wallace College
I really like how the case studies follow three students throughout the reading stages. These provide students with the chance to gain insight into students at different ability levels in the same developmental stage.
Michele Southern
Illinois State University
New to This Edition:
- Applies the major outcomes outlined in IRA/NCTE Standards (2002) throughout the text.
- Provides thorough coverage of how to assess the reading process through actual case studies and related specific practices.
- Explains how mandated state and federal standards can be related to the reading stage assessment and how schools are using the developmental stages to plan and assess reading instruction in relation to local, state and national standards.
- New case studies!
Meet the Authors
Michael O'Donnell is a professor of education and director of the University Summer Reading and Writing Workshop wherehe has taught at all grade levels and conducts research with young children, middle and high school students. He has also worked in the area of adult basic literary and has served as a consultant to many schools and government agencies including the US Department of Education. O'Donnell has published several textbooks.
Margo Wood is Associate Provost/Dean of Graduate Studies and professor of Literacy Education at the University of Southern Maine. She is author of two textbooks for teachers. A former classroom teacher and literacy specialist, her research interests include early literacy development and teacher research.
